I haven't told you the whole story about the Gate City Wreckers AAU baseball team. Their record coming into the national championship was 0-19. As in... they pretty much stunk as a team all season. But none of that means anything now.
The Wreckers received their national playoff bid on the strength of last fall's undefeated team. However, six of the starting members of the fall '04 rendition of the team had subsequently left the team before Jesse joined them back in May, but their bid to the Nationals was already in place and they knew they were going to Disnsey World regardless of their spring/summer season's record. We never would have expected a winless spring/summer season, but that's what we got. The guys have some awesome individual talent, but they just never quite gelled as a team... until today.
Today was the last of three 'pool play' games that served to seed the teams into the various national playoff brackets. Yesterday they lost both games.. check that... they got blown out of the water by two wonderful teams. The Wreckers were bummed and the coach was pissed, and with good reason... they just really sucked - making silly mistakes only befitting a bunch of 11 year-olds who never had played the game before.
Today they had one last chance to make it into the top bracket playoffs. All they had to do was win this one 'pool play' game to advance to the top level playoffs and become one of the top 36 teams in the nation. Before the game, Coach Tony Nusdeo finally told the team what they needed to hear... what everyone else already knew... he said"...you guys stink as a team, and everyone who came here to watch knows it, but it is not too late to prove yourselves to yourselves." It worked.
Dressed for the first time this season in all black uniforms and playing a very talented team out of South Florida called the Wellington Warriors, the Wreckers pulled it all together and wooped up on them like they should have been doing to every other team all season long. Final score: Wellington 3 - Wreckers 4. You'd have thought they had won the World Series...
 
With this win, they start championship 'pool play' tomorrow. The good and bad of this is that we will be staying here at least through Wednesday. If they win their game tomorrow morning, we could very well end up not breaking camp until Thursday or Friday but what the 'hey'... real life can wait.
The 'bad news' Wreckers finally won a game. And magically, despite their dismal record this season, Jesse's team is now only eight games from the national championship.
I'll be damned.
5:35:22 PM 
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